Shatter the Bones

‘Don’t be daft.’ He pulled off his facemask, exposing a little ginger goatee beard and a smile full of squint teeth. ‘What do you think fingerprint powder’s going to do on wet metal?’

‘Ah…’ Bugger. ‘Exactly.’ Ernie peeled back the hood of his SOC suit, exposing a high forehead barely holding onto a crown of yet more ginger. ‘Have to get it back to the ranch. Stick it somewhere dry for a couple of hours.’

‘Right…’

Rennie was sitting in his pool car, head stuck in The Accidental Sodomist again.

Logan knocked on the window.

A pause while the intellectual marked his place with a lottery ticket, then the window buzzed down. ‘Guv?’

‘Steel says I’m supposed to pick a minion: you’re it.’ Rennie grinned. Then hunched up one shoulder, scrunched up his face, and put on a ridiculous voice. ‘Yeth Maaaaathhhhhter…?’

‘Get your lopsided arse back to FHQ — I want a breakdown of every kidnapping in the country for the last ten years.’

The constable paused, biro hovering over his notebook. ‘Ten years?’

‘You heard.’ Logan watched the Wildlife Crime Officer waddling backwards into the car park, dragging the white body-bag. ‘Find out who’s running the drug gang investigations this week — I’m looking for Yardies with a thing for machetes.’

Rennie scribbled it all down. ‘Ten years…’

‘And,’ Logan pointed at his abandoned pool car, ‘you’re taking that back to the station. Wear gloves. Don’t sign it back in, don’t let anyone else touch it. Park it in the garage and let it dry off till Ernie can dust it for prints. If Big Gary gives you a hard time, tell him it’s evidence.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Yeah, if anyone asks…’ What? How the hell was he going to explain this one? Stolen car; dead dog; probable abduction: possible murder. ‘…if anyone asks, tell them I’ve been acting all concussed since you picked me up.’

Rennie nodded. ‘Thank God for that: thought you were going to ask me to lie for a minute…’

Chapter 26

‘Yes, yes, I know that…’ Logan slumped sideways until his head clunked against the driver’s window.

Finnie’s voice boomed out of the Airwave handset. ‘Then what exactly were you thinking, Sergeant? That the magic La-La fairies would turn up and hand your pool car back to you?’

‘I didn’t… It… I was being attacked by a dog at the time. Then you said-’

‘You’ll be lucky if that’s the only savaging you get today. Professional Standards: half- three.’

He thumped his head against the glass again. ‘Yes, sir.’

‘Where are you?’

Logan peered out through the rain-ribboned windscreen at a grubby house with a boarded-up window, ‘GELLOUS BITCH!!!’ scrawled in dripping purple spray-paint across the wall and front door.

A bashed and battered Ford Fiesta sat at the kerb, the windows shattered or empty, the bodywork a collection of huge dents and scratches.

‘Outside Victoria Murray’s house.’

‘I see…’ A pause. ‘Tell me, Sergeant, do you actually think “Vicious Vikki” is going to give you information that’ll have you scurrying off to solve the case? Meaning you can get out of your

meeting with Professional Standards? Because if you do, I’ve got some bad news for you: you will be back at headquarters by half-three. And after you’ve spoken to Superintendent Napier, you and I are going to have a little chat.’

Oh joy. Logan closed his eyes. Superintendent Napier, the Ginger Ninja.

‘Because I think we’ve got a bit of a communication problem, don’t you, Sergeant? You see, I thought I said, “Don’t piss off the man from SOCA.” And yet, for some unfathomable reason, you seem to have heard, “Insult Superintendent Green and call him a moron.” Isn’t that strange?’

Something smelled of shit. Logan checked the soles of his shoes: they were clean. He sniffed again. The stink got worse the closer he got to Victoria Murray’s front door. There was no way he was touching the bell.

He knocked on the wood instead, next to the purple letter ‘B’ in ‘BITCH!!!’

Waited for a minute.

Did it again.

Maybe she wasn’t in? Maybe she’d had enough of all the vandalism and hate mail, and gone into hiding?

One more, then he was heading back to the car.

A voice on the other side of the door: ‘Fuck off, I’m not in.’

‘Mrs Murray?’

‘If you don’t fuck off, I’m calling the police! I know my rights.’ Logan pulled out his warrant card and lifted the flap on the letterbox. ‘Detective Sergeant- What the…?’ There was something sticky on his fingers. He let the flap clack back into place.

Brown.

There was sticky brown muck all over his fingertips. ‘Oh … Jesus…’

Filthy bastards.

He wiped them on the door, leaving a chocolate-coloured rainbow. ‘I am the bloody police!’

There was a clunk. Then the door opened a crack, and a bloodshot eye peered out through the gap. ‘Prove it.’

Logan shoved his warrant card at her. ‘There’s shite in your letterbox.’

She nodded. ‘Stopped the bastards from peering in, trying to take photos of me in my bloody pants, didn’t it?’ The door thumped shut, then what sounded like a chain being removed, and it opened again. ‘Serves them right.’

Victoria Murray folded her arms underneath the sagging parcel shelf of her bosom. According to the article in last week’s Aberdeen Examiner, ‘ex-exotic dancer and call girl “Vicious” Vikki (22) had a threesome with two city councillors’.

God, they must have been desperate. A cigarette smouldered in the corner of her mouth, curling smoke around her narrowed eyes. Her chin disappeared into her neck, the pale skin speckled with spots around her nose and mouth. Making her head look like a used condom full of milk.

She hoicked her boobs up. ‘What do you want?’

‘I need to wash my hands.’

‘That it?’

‘You’re lucky I’m not arresting you. Putting shite in your letter box is-’

‘Aw, like they never did it. What the hell do you think happened to my carpet?’ She nodded at the floor.

A mat of newspaper was laid out across the bare floorboards. ‘Piss, shite, rotting vegetables, fucking … roadkill. I’ve had the lot. So don’t tell me I’m not allowed to get my own back, OK?’ She jerked her head to the left. ‘Toilet’s down there, first door on the left.’

He squeezed past and she thumped the door shut, rattled the chain back in place, turned the key in the lock. There was a plastic bag taped over the inside of the letter box, bulging with something dark.